Rosemarie clattered down the stairs. “What’s wrong?”
Beatrix tried to say she was OK, just unaccountably exhausted, as if she’d been awakened in the middle of the night and all she wanted to do was go back to sleep. But Ella said, “She’s ill!” And that was a good point. Shewasill. Obviously.
“I’ll call a doctor,” Rosemarie said, voice weighted with some emotion Beatrix couldn’t identify.
There was someone else they ought to call, wasn’t there? “Om …” Beatrix swallowed. It was so hard to talk. She was sotired.“Om … omniman …”
“Hush,” Ella murmured, “you need to rest.”
Beatrix’s eyes fluttered closed.
She heard Lydia’s voice, felt her sister’s cool hand on her forehead. She heard Rosemarie saying something into the telephone. Then Ella said, “I have to go, but the doctor’s coming, it’ll be all right, I promise—sleep now, that’s the best thing.”
Yes. She would go to sleep, and everything would be all right.
Peter staredblearily into the coffee he didn’t want to drink, cursing himself for over-imbibing the previous night when he needed his wits about him today. Martinelli, who’d had even more, was somehow managing to scramble eggs.
The man passed him a heaping plate. “Eat and you’ll feel better.”
Peter glared at him, but he did feel a bit less awful after finishing the food.
“See, I’m often right.” Martinelli’s grin was fleeting.
Peter thought of how his friend’s life was coming off the rails and wished he could do something for him. “If you need a reference”—he paused, saw how ridiculous that was and added—“from a wizard who tossed it all to go work for free on the bottom rung of the bureaucracy, then good luck to you. But I will gladly give it. I’ll even say you’re the most acceptable scientist I’ve ever known.”
Martinelli laughed.
“And come over anytime.”
“Thanks. That means a lot, boss.” Martinelli paused with his last bite of egg halfway to his mouth, searching Peter’s face. “Look … I know I can’t fully comprehend how it feels, being caught the way you and Miss Harper are. But it seems to me you have two choices: Make the best of it, or don’t. For all intents and purposes, you love each other. What do you gain by fighting it?”
“It feels like giving up to do anything else,” Peter said, understanding in a bone-deep way now—not just intellectually—why Beatrix had refused to surrender.
Martinelli nodded. “Sure. But think about it. Think what you’d do if you’d been pushed into an arranged marriage. If you’d pick ‘try to find happiness together,’ then you know what to do here.”
He stood and held out a hand. Peter rose to take it, no arguments on his lips because he had none to make.
“God knows,” Martinelli murmured, “that happiness is a hard-won commodity in any circumstances.” He drew Peter in for a one-armed hug. “You’ll be OK, whippersnapper. Hang in there.”
“You, too,” Peter said, almost unable to get the words out. “Don’t give up on Mae.”
“I haven’t.” Martinelli swallowed. “You know, quitting might help. All those long hours—it must have been so lonely for her.” He sighed. “So long, on that cheerful note.”
“Wait,” Peter said, coming to a decision. “Just a minute.”
He strode to his desk drawer in the receiving room and removed a document he’d written earlier but had yet to sign.I, Peter William Blackwell, being of sound mind and body, do hereby will all my possessions to Beatrix Jane Harper …
He owed this to her. No matter how he truly felt.
“Would you be my witness?” he asked.
Martinelli raised his eyebrows, but he nodded. They each signed. Martinelli patted him on the back, and they walked silently to the door.
One step shy of it, Martinelli stopped. “Good heavens, I nearly forgot. Do you know who Miss Knight is?”
“Sure,” Peter said. “She lives in town. Miss Harper’s friend—you met her a few weeks ago.”
“No, I mean, do you know who she really is?”
